November 11 is Veterans Day. It’s an official American holiday to honor the men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. The date marks the anniversary of the end of World War I on November 11, 1918.

To commemorate this day, my Poetry Corner November 2014 features the poem “Jungle Rot and Open Arms” by Janice Mirikitani, a sansei or third-generation Japanese American born in 1941 in Stockton, California.

Janice Mirikitani’s life was touched by two wars: World War II and the Vietnam War. As an infant during World War II, she was interned with her family and other Japanese American families in the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas.

At the end of the war, to avoid the racism still prevailing on the West Coast, Mirikitani’s family moved to Chicago. Her parents’ marriage did not survive the tumult in their lives. Writing became a source of comfort for the fledgling poet.

When her mother remarried in 1948, they moved to rural Petaluma, California. In her new home, Mirikitani endured years of emotional isolation, poverty, and the trauma of sexual abuse by her stepfather, lasting almost a decade. Her poetry helped her to define herself and served as a means of expressing her stifled emotions.

In her poem “Jungle Rot and Open Arms” for a Vietnam Veteran brother and ex-prisoner, Mirikitani opens with her encounter with her brother during his treatment and recovery at the Leavenworth VA Medical Center.

Leavenworth / and jungle too / brought him / back to us / brimming with hate / and disbelief / in love or / sympathy.

Her Vietnam Veteran brother’s rage is greater than her anger at the Vietnamese leaders. He shares with her his love for a Vietnamese woman: “Her hair was long and dark – like yours.” He risks his life to spend nights with his beloved in her village. But the war dealt him a terrible blow. While they slept, she was taken from him during a raid.

“[I] woke / with her arm / still clasping mine / I could not find / the rest of her / so I buried her arm / and marked my grave.”

For me, this scene is the most poignant part of Mirikitani’s poem. During war, love between enemies is treacherous. War severs the bond between us, leaving our soul[s] buried in a shallow grave.

Mirikitani shares her pain: I stood amidst / his wreckage / and wept for myself.

Our veterans are brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. When they return from war zones, broken in mind and body like jungle rot, their families greet them with open arms and share their pain.

Very powerful, Rosaliene. Thank you. The coincidences around this time of year pile up. November 9 and 10 is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the government organized pogrom of German Jews in 1938. And, of course, we are just past September 11. I imagine one could make a horrific calendar containing the dates commemorated in every country, marking the beginning or ending of some war, and the battles, betrayals, and exterminations remembered in each nation. It is a job I will not take on, by the way!

Watch the documentary film, Body of War, made by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro about the story of Tomas Young’s life after returning home from Iraq.

Tomas sustained a T-4 spinal injury, the spot between the shoulder blades. His paralysis, from the nipples down, was total. Tomas would never walk again. In a flash from the rooftop of a sniper’s rifle Tomas lost his ability to walk and lost bowel and bladder control. Tomas would never again be able to cough and — not so insignificant for a 24-year-old — he lost his sex life. This is what is quaintly referred to as the harm in “harm’s way.”

Body of War, also available on Netflix, is a close-up family drama, one that is playing itself out in thousands of other American homes occupied by severely wounded veterans whose physical and mental burdens have turned their whole house upside down. To the American populace, they are not there.

I was not aware of Janice Mirikitani – thanks, Rose for another very good choice. Unfortunately, i could not hear Janice on the vimeo because of my ancient Mac but her words come through, reminding us of our disgraces, which, it seems, our selective memories always need reminding of.